Home|Fatwa|Authenticity of The Story Regarding The Son of UMARرضي الله عنه Fornicating

Authenticity of The Story Regarding The Son of UMARرضي الله عنه Fornicating

731 people read this post.

read time: 5min

Authenticity of the story regarding the son of ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) fornicating

Question

There is a story that is regularly mentioned in the context of the justice of Sayyidunā ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him). The story is that his son fornicated with a woman and a child was born as a result. The matter was presented to ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) and his son was invited. He confessed to fornicating and thereafter ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) instructed that he is punished with the prescribed lashes. This was actioned by ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) himself and someone else. Is this story true?

بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم

Answer

This story is fabricated. Ḥāfiẓ Jawraqānī (d. 543/1148) and Ḥāfiẓ Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201) have transmitted the various short and detailed versions of this story with their chains and concluded that the various versions of the story are all a fabrication forged by the story tellers. Ḥadīth experts who agree with this include: Ḥāfiẓ Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505), ʿAllāmah Ibn ʿIrāq (d. 963/1555-6), ʿAllāmah Ṭāhir Pattanī (d. 986/1578-9) and our teacher Muḥaddith al-ʿAṣr Mawlānā Muḥammad Yūnus Jownpūrī (d. 1438/2017).

However, Imam ʿAbd al-Razzāq (d. 211/827) and Ḥāfiẓ Jawraqānī (d. 543/1148) transmit another story through their chains which are both ṣaḥīḥ (sound). The summary is that once the Abū Shaḥmah ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUmar (n.d.) (may Allah be pleased with them), who was most probably born a few years before the demise of the Prophet ﷺ, became intoxicated in Egypt and was punished in a house with lashes and his head shaved. Shaving the head was a prevalent practice at the time with punishments. Some other narrations suggest that when Sayyidunā ʿUmar (d. 23/644) (may Allah be pleased with him) found out he expressed his displeasure at ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ (d. 43/664) (may Allah be pleased with him) for not punishing him in public although private punishments are lawful. Either way, he instructed ʿAmr (may Allah be pleased with him) to return him to the blessed city of Madīnah, where ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) punished him in his capacity as a father. He passed away a month later, but not as a result of his father’s punishment as some people started to believe.

There are two important points worth noting here. First, it appears that he did not intoxicate himself deliberately, as mentioned by Ḥāfiẓ Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201). Rather, he drank the nabīdh (water soaked with dates or raisins) thinking that it is not intoxicating and therefore regarding it as lawful. Thus, he became intoxicated without intending to. The wording of the narration cited by Ḥāfiẓ Ibn al-Jawzī supports this assertion. Second, it is once he realised that he had become intoxicated, he presented himself voluntarily to ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ (may Allah be pleased with him) and asked to be punished and purified. This demonstrates his piety and god consciousness. One must be extremely cautious when citing such stories of the companions or their children, may Allah be pleased with them, and remember that sometimes through Almighty Allah’s wisdom, a person errs and thereafter repents in such a way that his status is elevated very high. An example is found in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (1695) in relation to another companion who committed a sin in the Prophetic era and voluntarily requested to be punished and purified. The Prophet ﷺ said after the punishment had concluded, “He has made such repentance that if it were to be divided among a nation, it would have been enough for them.”